I finally bit the bullet this past week and started work on a bibliography page for the website. It’s edifying and somewhat scary to look at a listing of one’s work and realize how much has (and hasn’t) been happening, especially in a writing career like mine which is punctuated by fits and starts.
Fact # 1: From 1992-1998, I wrote a lot of stuff. Nonfiction stuff. Most of it was unpaid, in little Portland political zines. But I’d started writing things for a couple of paying markets except, unfortunately, in one case the editorial perspective changed and the market was no longer interested in a regular column about the Catholic internet. And then life intervened, in a couple of different forms. I started making money off the colored stone bead hobby and that started to suck up my serious marketing focus (when I wasn’t busy raising the son and dealing with the beginnings of the educational issues around his high functioning autism).
Jewelry went to pieces after 9/11 because my business was primarily mail-order and online. Um. Yeah. And then, after that, I started intensifying a freelance clerical/bookkeeping business, then went to school to get a teaching certificate.
And all the stuff tied in with that.
Recent sales are primarily fiction, with the exception of four blog posts that, again, appear to have had some editorial changes going on (that combined with another bout of Real Life has put that aspect of writing on temporary hold). It’s ironic that my first published piece of nonfiction was about my early adventures with the son in special education, dang near twenty years ago. Gee, twenty years ago who’d have thunk that I’d now be a special ed teacher?
Going back and looking over what I wrote in that six year period, and now looking at what I’m doing now is eye-opening. It reminds me that yes, I can produce good writing on a variety of subjects and that yes, I can write political stuff. I’m thinking very hard about reprinting some of those early political articles in e-book form, because while some are dated, others most definitely are not.
Fascinating stuff. All I need to add now are the Writers of the Future placements and the Anthology Builder contest placement. And keep the dang thing updated. I was in a panic because I thought I was going to have to key in all those articles from 1992-1998. Well, fortunately, I had the document already together because at some point I thought it was a good idea.
Recordkeeping. It’s not for sissies…and much better done when regularly updated.
Just another bit of writer blathering today.
